Neil Shepard (born January 29, 1951, in Fitchburg, Massachusetts) is an American poet, essayist, professor of creative writing, and literary magazine editor. He has a BA from University of Vermont, MFA from Colorado State University, and Ph.D. from Ohio University. He has taught at Louisiana State University, Rider University (NJ), Johnson State College (VT), and Wilkes University (PA). He has published seven full collections of poetry -- How It Is: Selected Poems (Salmon Poetry, Ireland, 2018), Vermont Exit Ramps II (Green Writers Press, VT, 2015), Hominid Up (Salmon Poetry, Ireland, 2015), (T)ravel/Un(t)ravel (Mid-List, 2006), I'm Here Because I Lost My Way (Mid-List, 1998), Scavenging the Country for a Heartbeat (First Book Award, Mid-List Press, 1993), --as well as a chapbook Vermont Exit Ramps (Big Table Publishing, 2012). His poems have been nominated numerous times for the Pushcart Prize, and they have been featured online at Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and Poem-A-Day (from the Academy of American Poets). Shepard has been a writing fellow at the MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland. He has served as a visiting writer and workshop leader at several institutions, among them, Poets House (NYC), Chautauqua Writers Institute (NY), Ossabaw Island Writers Retreat (GA), and the Frost Place (NH). He founded and directed for eight years the Writing Program at the Vermont Studio Center, and he taught for several decades in the BFA Creative Writing Program at Johnson State College in Vermont until his retirement in 2009. He also founded the literary magazine Green Mountains Review and was the Senior Editor for a quarter-century. Outside of the literary realm, Neil is founding member of the jazz-poetry group PoJazz. He currently splits his time between New York City and Vermont.